a day at the park

Lego Fans:part 2

There is another Border's coupon out for 30% off instore or online. (none of the great lego selections are available online) This coupon is valid thru 3/22.

**You do have to be a Borders Rewards Perks member to use this coupon, but you can sign up for FREE in minutes here. (I actually signed up on M's cell phone on the way to the store last time.)

Lego Fans

Just a tip or two...

Michael and I have been desperately trying to rebuild our lego stash from childhood (although all the sets back then were just plain more interesting). Yes, of course, this is for David! (wink, wink) We discovered a better place to purchase legos. It seems that all sets are marked almost the same, either online or in store (in fact, Amazon tends to be more expensive than its rivals). Through an unusual set of circumstances, we found ourselves at Barnes & Noble looking at legos about a month ago. I pretty much figured they would be 3x the price, but no! They were if anything, a tiny bit cheaper. We decided to purchase a castle set. (too bad, our 10% coupon had just expired). We still got a decent deal and used a gift card that needed to be used.

A couple of days ago, also in the quest to use a gift card, we headed to Borders--again with the idea of legos in mind. This time we had a 30% off coupon. (and these come out regularly online) We ended up with a great deal this time on the lego city fire station.

All this to say, have you ever thought of trying to purchase legos in a book store? The prices are about equivalent to elsewhere, and you can use coupons that Walmart or Target likely will not have.

PS Have not tried using the 20% off coupon for Babies R Us on a lego set, but perhaps that would work as well. Those are also a dime a dozen.

A budding artist

David Weyler's first artwork (American, 2008-)

Abstract or Not ; March 12, 2010

(fortunately) pencil on tile floor

Growing by leaps and bounds

David,

You have grown up immensely in the past month!!! (even this past week!) We have hit the terrible two's and the tantrums (although not all the time), but we also now have the joy of communicating back and forth so much better!

You have added a whole lot of words to your vocab this month. You surprised me by saying "out" one day when you were desperate to get out of your high chair; had not realized I had taught you that one. You mimic Mommy more and have even said Mama! You have also strung two words together now in a phrase to say "Bye, Daddy." You are also pretty polite most of the time now saying "please" and "thank you." You express satisfaction with your food by saying "mmmm" and "no" when you are not eager to eat. You have begun saying "cheese" (on your own) when we take your picture. What a cutie!

You have also started pointing to things when we name them. As always, you are not always so compliant that you do it every time on demand, but you are capable of indicating your hair, your mouth, your nose, your eye, and your belly button as well as other everyday household objects.

Your coordination and focus has lengthened too. You can now put together your truck puzzle pretty well on your own. The Fisher Price shape sorter has become an actual puzzle to you too. Instead of just taking the lid off and putting the shapes in, you now are becoming the pro. You are quite confident with the circles. They go in first. Then you pick out all the squares and generally get those in without trouble. The stars are not too bad, but the triangles still have you "puzzled." You will also sit and watch tv for longer periods of time...limited to making dinnertime or long afternoons though. You still love the Cedarmont Kids but have expanded to watch bits of Word World, Cars, as well as random others.

Your latest favorite toys are your little matchbox cars (to which you will drive them around the house saying "beep, beep." You still like balls. Now, you also often pull out books from the shelf and try to read them. You love books! You have also discovered stuffed animals and really have taken a liking to many of them in such a sweet way. It all began with the "unstuffed" dog toys that our sweet next-door neighbor brought over to you. It took Mama a minute to figure out that she meant them for you; apparently she bought two for her dog and two for you. The tails and the heads of the fox and raccoon squeak. It seems you can talk to the animals, because everytime I squeak them, you say "hi" to the animals and give them a big hug. You have started hugging many of your stuffed animals.

You will now wear hats occasionally. After bringing home a cowboy hat from PNO at church, you decided it was not something to be refused after all. In fact, you insisted on wearing it to bed one night so the poor straw hat ended up with a few holes in the morning! Still (generally) hats will not be worn on command; it must be a voluntary action on your part.

You do love music!!! You love to dance to many of your videos' songs or even sing along. One of your favorite songs is "Jesus loves me." You almost always try to sing along with me. You also like "If you're happy and you know it." Perhaps it was all the singing (mostly made up songs) that Mama did when you were little...

We had our first more serious tumble this month when you slipped and fell down the stairs. So thankfully, you only ended up with a big goose egg on your head and a cut over one eye.

The eating front has not changed significantly. Most days I despair, but every once in a while you start eating better and more broadly. You now refuse fish sticks and mostly live on pb&j, chicken nuggets, and hotdogs. You are quite pickier on veggies too but most often, I can slip them in either by feeding you with a spoon, allowing you to try to feed yourself them with a spoon ("I eat my peas with honey. I've done it all my life. It makes the peas taste funny, but they sure stay on the knife."), or sneaking them into yogurt.

You have switched to almost all 2T clothing. This is due to your very long torso. The smaller shirts are just too short in the body. You can still fit into smaller pants however.

The first half of this month was a bit challenging as you were getting over your fourth or fifth ear infection. However, after that cleared up, you have been so cheerful!!! You are often full of laughs and have played contentedly for longer. There are those moments...when you don't get your way that you now throw a screaming fit. Hopefully with time and attentive discipline you will outgrow them all. :)

When you do start to get whiny or don't feel good, you have become far more of a Mama's boy than ever before. While you still squeal in laughter to see your Daddy, you are now often eager to get back to Mama's arms. Often, you will even stop fussing if Mama just reaches down and walks around the house holding your hand.

You have started shrieking when you are excited. We keep reminding you not to use such a loud, high-pitched voice. This has been funny because now when we remind you to quiet down, you often put your finger to your lips and say "shh."

You still nap so well-- 2.5 hours+ most days. And well at night too. Bedtime is later now though--almost always around 7 pm. There have been those two nights this week though...

I think the nights can be attributed to the same cause as every other "waking in the middle of the night" time you have had: teething. You cut another top tooth on the left (maybe two back from front tooth) today and have a matching one about to cut on the right.

Even with the cold weather, we have gotten outside a bit. And now that it is warming up, we fully intend to return to our walks!

Sorry for the dearth of pictures this month. It just got away from us, and the kitchen decisions seemed to get more footage this month.

We love you so much, son! What a wonderful blessing God has given us in you!

Music to my ears

Monday was another milestone. David said "Mama" clearly and for the first time (although he has been making the mmmm sound for months). Yes, it was after prompting. No, I did not hold a gun to his head. And no, I am still not sure he was talking about me. But... this is the first step to no longer being called "Daddy!"

Points=Money

There is a website that I have been a member of for a little while. It is called Swagbucks. You can earn points just for searching using their search engine (normally about 10-20 points a day) and at 450 points you can earn an Amazon gift card. There are also random extra points awarded regularly. It normally takes me about a month but with hardly any effort and I have a free gift card!

I think I have earned $20-25 in Amazon gift cards over the past 6 months with hardly any effort. There are also other prizes to choose from. This may not seem much but it is still free cash and fun for mad money or a gift fund.

A few pointers:
• You receive 30 points just for signing up here.
• Every Friday (as in today) is MegaSwagbucks Day which means you could earn a lot more points for searching than other days. I earned 40 points today in one search.
• Normally the easiest way to get points is to search either from their website or the toolbar which you can install. I find that normally within a few minutes of searching (often hitting the back arrow to get back to the search results page), I will earn 10-20 points. This seems to be about all most days on the searching, so I would not waste your time trying for much longer. You can even use your normal search engine after that; I often do.
• If you install the toolbar, it often has extra freebie codes that pop-up at the top.
• They often have extra codes for points that are given out in scavenger hunt style.
• Other ways to earn points: use their main page to shop, go to the no obligation offers (and be sure to click skip through the offers) and at the end you are awarded with a random number of points each day, follow them for extra codes on flicker or facebook, subscribe to their newsletter (I think once a month comes out with a new code), read their blog (I subscribe to it via google reader), get referrals (yes, if you do sign up through me, I do get a few perks).

Overall, it may seem yet another scheme, but I am mentioning it here because I have had so much fun getting the gift cards with very little work (one of the easiest and most fun "extra income" ideas) I love the fact that I am saving up for something specific on Amazon without having to take the money out of our normal budget!